


a matter of choice

by kalachuchi



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, M/M, Missed Connections, Non-Linear Narrative, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-27 09:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17764364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalachuchi/pseuds/kalachuchi
Summary: At the dusk of his career, Zhu Zhengting wins Outstanding Actor and skips his own afterparty.





	a matter of choice

**Author's Note:**

> \- canon divergent in the sense it plays a little loosely with when people debuted, etc etc.  
> \- let's also assume in this particular timeline seventeen's chinaline have always had china schedules alongside promotions, before ultimately diverging to a mainland career.  
> \- inspired entirely by zzt first namedropping jun as a good friend way back in... produce101, season 2. and the consecutive series of zzt and jun barely missing each other, like zzt guesting on the show jun mc'd up till an episode prior.

Only a dream links me to myself –

The hazy and belated dream

Of what I should have been – a wall

around my abandoned garden.

 

** Fernando Pessoa, _The Scaffold_ **

 

 

Wen Junhui performs an unreleased song at the 24th Huabiao Film Awards.

Having turned down the role that landed Zhengting his invitation to the awards, Zhengting didn’t expect to find Junhui here. He isn’t the only one surprised – Shanghai Fashion Week is less than three days away, and Junhui’s attendance there is as certain as his singleminded focus when he picks up a role. 

But there he is. On stage his falsetto is clear, lilting. Even now, Junhui has never been known for loudness. Watching him leaves Zhengting restless, an intensity that builds and leaves his lungs feel like something close to collapsing. 

Junhui’s stage costume fits like a glove, complementing both the singer and the song, this particular one a tightrope contraption of lace and sheer. Sifting through his memory of who he _did_ notice arriving tonight, Zhengting can guess who designed it.

_Someone that defines you,_ Junhui is singing. _Someone you find, in the end._

Without having to be told, Zhengting knows the song is an original of Junhui’s own design, recognises each line like words from a language he never fully reached fluency in. 

_…A dream you choose to hold on to._

“I’ve dreamed of this all my life,” Zhengting opens his speech forty five minutes later. He holds up the award, raises it close to his chest. “Or at least, the last several months of it.” 

From the podium Zhengting feels the audience’s attention, honed like a razor, as welcome as a caress. In this moment, Zhengting cannot fathom being anywhere else, pursuing anything else.

This is, after all, what Zhengting chose.

 

 

At the dusk of his career, Zhu Zhengting wins Outstanding Actor and skips his own afterparty.

 

 

_You didn’t ask me to stay._

If he had a chance to ask Junhui again, he might have said this instead. He doesn’t think he would, though, even if it’s what he still means.

But that isn’t a question. Doesn’t merit something in response. It isn’t a choice, simply this: two roads diverging where two paths once stood, side by side…

What Zhengting actually tells Junhui is: _You don’t want me back_.

Not enough, anyway. What makes something, everything, if it feels like it means nothing?

_That shouldn’t have made any difference._

But it did. It does.

 

 

There was an interviewer once, when Zhengting was twenty-two and already too careful by far, sounding enthused enough when she asked him _So where do you see yourself in ten years?_ that Zhengting nearly believes it wasn’t scripted. Zhengting no longer recalls her face, only the efficient way she worked through every question after. 

As if Zhengting’s unscripted _I don’t know_ stunned nobody but Zhengting himself. 

Even now, seven years later, the same confusion a living desire that flows through Zhengting’s veins, settled in his skin. A wanting without name or destination. 

Junhui, back facing him in the aisle of a convenience store when he says, “It’s alright not to want me, you know.”Tone stilted instead of probing.

“How do you know?”

“Eh? Well, we’re–.” Junhui doesn’t say it. “–Aren’t we?”

As if the distance between Zhengting, twenty-two and careful, and Zhengting, twenty-seven but clueless, measures only a stone’s throw into the river, ripples unnoticed amidst the current as it sank. It is, after all, impossible to answer questions of _Where_ you will be without first addressing the question of _Who._ Zhengting repeats himself:

“But _how do you know.”_

Junhui pauses. 

Then he says, “You didn’t choose me. You still don’t.”

“And that doesn’t. It doesn’t bother you?”

Zhengting, interviewee turned interviewer. All things eventually reach full circle – life is simple that way, if not any easier. Junhui turns around. He doesn’t answer immediately. 

“Well,” Junhui settles on.“I’m wearing your face, aren’t I?”

The set of Junhui’s shoulders even, unfaltering. Zhengting watching him like a reflection, an image of himself years earlier, a mirror’s reflection unchanged so long as Zhengting doesn’t search for chips in the glass. 

Smiling, Junhui holds up two cups of instant noodles. Says, “No need to think so deeply. It is what it is, yes? Zhengting, look, let’s eat, my treat! It’s been years.” Zhengting’s not hungry but he nods anyway. A reflection doesn’t change if you don’t look, but it doesn’t move until you move first.

Once cooked, the noodles are spicy enough to make Zhengting’s eyes water. Junhui eats as if he’s never wanted anything more. But Zhengting wants, too. Wants a wind that carries you nowhere, leaves you breathless for the thrill of it. A current that roars with momentum. 

Wants, just a bit, someone to eat noodles with outside the steps of a convenience store without having to think about what happens after. In Zhengting’s heart plays a musical fast approaching climax, chords unresolved but final as the curtain close looms.

Beside Junhui, Zhengting leaves his noodles unfinished. Watching the empty road, Zhengting thinks about what happens after.

 

 

Zhu Zhengting first meets Wen Junhui at age seventeen, in Seoul. His fringe trails over his eyes almost constantly, limbs mismatched and gangly. Zhengting studies him from the mirror of Yuehua’s studio. Sees a dancer, or a dancer’s build, if not the matching grace. Not like Zhengting. 

Junhui shows him around, after. Wins handily over him at every arcade game that didn’t involve a ball. No, not very like Zhengting at all. 

Zhengting is charmed.   
  
They click immediately.

 

 

Junhui spends half of his first post-filming afterparty not being there. Zhengting would label Junhui fashionably late had Junhui not strolled in after a friend like an afterthought and not the invitation. The contrast of an appearance for appearance’s sake, at a party selective enough specifically to avoid matters of the public eye. He’d be noticed no matter what, though: Zhengting himself still a novelty, and it’s not even his first time at one of these things. New blood always stirs the pot.

So it’s probably just as well he brought the Xu kid along; Xukun’s been looking for a designer for – for _something,_ lack of information easy enough to blame on Zhengting merrily on his way to getting plastered – so Zhengting may as well show him one that won’t style him like the world’s most sequin-studded tearaway dress. _Owe me later, Cai Xukun._

Besides, Junhui has always been a bit of a homebody. Betrayal, however irrational, stings less when it stems from Junhui appearing after telling Zhengting he wouldn’t, and not from Junhui appearing after Zhengting finally convinced himself to stop searching for him anyway.

So, there. Zhengting wades through the crowd, murmurs parting like a tide, a dream, a path as familiar to Zhengting as if he’s walked it all his life. _All roads lead back to –_

The ambience that was building, if in Zhengting’s mind alone, is only partially ruined by Junhui startling as Zhengting slings himself across Junhui’s back. Tucks his chin neatly against Junhui’s shoulder.

“No thank you,” Junhui says. Zhengting narrows his eyes.

“Ah,” nods someone else, gesturing significantly at Zhengting. “Accounted for already, then?”

It’s about now Zhengting begins to suspect he is interrupting something, the moment as immediate as it feels unimportant, and Junhui’s hand curls around Zhengting’s wrist, Zhengting’s arm draped over Junhui’s chest. Permission to touch granted before request to reach.

“Oh, no, it’s not…” Junhui pauses. Doesn’t fluster, exactly, the upwards jerk of Junhui’s shoulder stilled before Zhengting thinks to adjust himself more comfortably.

Zhengting realises the rejection Zhengting presumed directed at himself was in fact to the person across Junhui. _Are you seeing anyone?_ Zhengting thinks he’s one of the stage director’s new interns. He isn’t Junhui’s type anyway, Zhengting sniffs, eyeing the glass of bubbly in Intern’s hand. Junhui likes beer, theabsolute madman, but that doesn’t even matter because Junhui doesn’t even drink anymore, not if he can help it. How sad for him…

“Is he your,” Intern mouths the next bit, _You know?_ and Zhengting clips, “I’m sober, actually,” but Junhui blinks once, twice, thrice. _Eh?_

When Junhui speaks his voice is firm.

“That shouldn’t matter.”

“Shouldn’t it,” Intern muses, gaze keen at Junhui and Zhengting both now. The party continues in the rest of the room, presumably, but in this particular corner curdles something uncomfortable, surging from the gaps between what Junhui isn’t admitting.

_Are you seeing someone? Accounted for already? Ah, a soulmate maybe–_

“It shouldn’t. Doesn’t,” Junhui corrects. 

More keenly than ever, Zhengting feels like he’s intruding in his own body, trespasser to a trap beyond his control,and he almost misses Intern’s next question before another voice interrupts:

“Sorry, I ran into someone I didn’t expect to see – Junhui _-gē?”_

The Xu kid, a plastic cup of water in hand, peering at the three of them like some early-bird entry grandfather, all wool sweater vest and round glasses without any lenses. But his shoulders are taut, eyes alert.

Zhengting stops and waits too, but Junhui just exhales. Breathes.

“Minghao.” Relieved.

To Intern Guy, Minghao adds, “Director Yu is looking for you, I think –?”

Minghao’s tone is mild, but the dismissal is clear as an open window, searing as the magnifying glass channelling midday sun. Everything slows, playing back at uneven frame rates as somewhere in Zhengting something begins unspooling. He looks at Junhui. He moves through water. He feels everything from inside his head, stuck far away.

“I didn’t know you knew the Director, Xiao Hao,” Junhui continues, and suddenly time speeds back up, jammed abruptly into the present. Zhengting steps back as Minghao hands the cup of water to Junhui. Distances himself.

Minghao says, “I don’t.”

Zhengting says, to nobody in particular: “I thought you weren’t coming.”

Minghao snorts. Junhui says, “I said that?”

Zhengting turns to look at him, ignores Minghao mirroring the motion from Junhui’s other side.

“Ah. Maybe I did,” Junhui allows. “But, I’m here now.”

“Yes. Well done,” Minghao says, voice dry.

“I found you, so you must be here.” Zhengting adds, “Happy post-production.” 

Junhui beams. “Let’s work hard next time too.”

Minghao remains where he is, posture unaffected. Zhengting moves backwards, further away.

Zhengting thinks Xu Minghao is a terrible liar.

 

 

An image goes viral of Cai Xukun’s most recent gala costume. Zhengting has certainly never seen anything so garish in his life, but he saves the picture dutifully, struck by the incurable sensation he’s forgetting something.

 

 

Commercially, the film is a success. Wen Junhui rides its current, name blinking at Zhengting from Weibo’s trending instead of Zhengting’s WeChat Moments. _What an earnest display of emotion,_ netizens praise, _He might tidy up into something big, one day._

Zhengting scrolls through news articles on the way to the morning’s schedule. Group chats muted, rife with speculation of some other, less successful venture, or of a boy chosen for a soulmate that doesn’t choose him back–

–but that’s not anyone’s business except Junhui’s. 

It’s not Zhengting’s anymore, at least, and he tries not to think of that as his problem either.

His manager bites his lip. Zhengting pretends not to notice the looks shot his way, his manager’s eyes dark, rimmed heavy with exhaustion. But they’re all tired, and this should be nothing new.

_Everyone is destined for something,_ his dance trainer said once, when he still lived in Korea, and the loneliness struck harder even than the choreography Zhengting barely parsed through unfamiliar vocabulary.

Zhengting thinks he pretended not to notice as much as he really did then, too.

 

 

“For reference,” Zhengting says, passing a photograph turned facedown. 

“If you’re sure.”

“Yes.” Zhengting doesn’t need to look at the picture again to know. The clinic room is cool but calming. He is twenty and about to enter his first survival show. There is no room for uncertainty now.

No room for anything else, either.

 

 

If soulmates are a choice made by providence, then fame was a choice Zhengting made out of circumstance. An irreversible choice, but a choice nonetheless. The expected outcome from following the road of whatever it takes. 

And what did it take? Cameras flashing like the sun rising over each new day. Zhengting’s life lived in moments. Connections written and rewritten, more refined but less sincere with each turn of the page. 

A dulling heart compensated by the comfort of knowing what looks matte is steady, and what is steady is durable. The world’s brightness a moment Zhengting felt he could make last all his life. Endurance is a trend that never fades out of style.

Zhengting’s final award show arrived as a sendoff that felt like a new beginning. He accepts his award. He gives his speech. Stokes pride that glows even as it burns out. Because this, this is living too, or should be – a choice is something that was made to be lived with.

Remembers one of his earliest pictorials, taken at age twenty, and considers the image of himself. Studies the face he had committed to wearing for keeps.

A life is a life is a life.

 

 

Fresh from their dome tour in Japan, Junhui winds up at Beijing for a filming schedule three days from today, though Zhengting doesn’t doubt the handful of other little schedules scattered throughout Junhui’s mini vacation. 

Zhengting catches the trails of his conversation now, Korean jolting in its familiarity where it sinks past most other people on the street. “Yes, I’m relaxing well. No, I won’t overwork my throat.” Junhui catches sight of Zhengting and smiles as he continues, “I’m meeting my friend now! Bye bye!”

“Nanny manager?” Zhengting asks in greeting.

Junhui cackles. “A little bit? More like a fussy grandmother.”

“Sounds serious,” Zhengting drawls. “But it’s always advisable, following advice from one’s elders.”

Zhengting rolls his eyes. Junhui has always grinned like a child, unchanging and unafraid.

“Of course,” Junhui agrees. 

So naturally they end up at a karaoke joint. Zhengting’s never visited this particular franchise but Junhui evidently has, expression sparkling as he books them a booth and negotiates snacks with the person at the counter. It’s overly warm at the front reception, but Zhengting keeps his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, heart light. Buoyed by warmth. 

Heat rises, after all. Zhengting learned that in grade school.

Turning to waggle a receipt at him, Junhui says, “We got booth… two! Go go go.”

And so they go.

 

 

It is almost an accident when Zhengting runs into Xu Minghao. There’s an afterparty being held in Zhengting’s name, on the opposite end of the city, but for once in his life Zhengting avoids the attention, something akin to desperate for a moment beyond anyone else’s reach. 

A personal acceptance of personal achievement, crystallised in a moment crafted by himself for himself, an audience of one.

Zhengting squints through the glass exterior at the person waiting in the entrance hall, trying to parse if there’s a queue. Close to a minute passes before Zhengting notices that not only is he looking at someone he knows, but that Minghao is also looking back, so by then it’s too late to avoid acknowledging each other. 

Nobody else is waiting except Minghao, in any case, which means Minghao must be waiting for someone else, and Zhengting will not have to queue to eat without prior booking. Minghao ducks out from the entrance hall to hold the door open, presumably for Zhengting. 

Minghao says, “It’s too cold to wait for anyone outside.” 

Zhengting isn’t waiting for anyone, but the weather has never made exceptions out of technicality. 

He steps inside. 

It’s warm, almost too warm. Minghao nods at him. Zhengting wonders at the chances of two people, both closely acquainted with a third person (not present), both deciding to dine at the same branch of a hot pot franchise said third person enjoys, on the same night at least three different afterparties are taking place. One of which is being held in Zhengting’s name. Certainly all three of them would have invites to all three events regardless of name. The coincidence seems uncanny, or at worst cosmically cruel.

_No such thing as coincidence,_ trills Junhui’s voice, a memory of familiar nonsense recalled with the clarity of a proverb. _No such thing as shortage of friends also!_ Not that Minghao is what Zhengting would call a friend. On the topic of friends–

“Company running late?” Zhengting offers in lieu of greeting. Or as a greeting.

Xu Minghao is, among other things, not someone Zhengting knows how to talk to. But Zhengting doesn’t read into it too deeply.

Minghao just looks at him. Says, “Junhui likes this branch best.”

“Right.” Zhengting doesn’t hear anything of Minghao’s own preferences. He doesn’t mention it. 

Outside, the traffic is bustling. Not even a god could escape this primetime seat in staying still, stuck on the roads. Zhengting himself only got out as quickly as he did by sprinting to hail a cab a few blocks out, forgetting his contacts case when he stepped out again. He can’t imagine Junhui being so straightforward in his evasion.

“Your collection – you’re releasing a seasonal in a few days, right?” 

Minghao nods. Doesn’t elaborate. 

Zhengting supposes he doesn’t need to. Xu Minghao’s name precedes him, if not in branding then in the reputation that he designs as if he himself personally carried every stitch he made down the runway. Perfectionism made a synonym for consideration of his models. At the very least, Zhengting likes to think Junhui would want more than just personal connection to walk for someone else, year in and out.

Nevertheless. Not even the most intimate of knowledge about someone else would reveal a polite way to ask why Minghao is spoiling his frontrunner model with _Haidilao_ three days before a fashion week.

“So this is, what. Date night? Early celebration, or…”

“Or,” Minghao volunteers, mouth quirking upwards. Then he elaborates, “It’s important to take care of yourself first. Anyway, I handle Junhui’s final tailoring myself. I don’t mind.”

“Right,” Zhengting says. “ _Right_. Well…”

“Zhu Zhengting,” Minghao interrupts. Zhengting wishes he would stop doing that. 

But it’s not as if Minghao has interrupted Zhengting in anything before.

Minghao asks, “What are you really doing out here? There’s a place waiting for you somewhere else, isn’t there?”

Zhengting reaches into his pocket. Soundlessly returns his hands to rest by his sides without a familiar contacts case. Without them, the details of Minghao’s suit are indistinct, high definition rendered in standard resolution.

Zhengting says, “I didn’t think you would ask him to come back every time.”

Minghao hums, “For fashion week?” at the same time Zhengting adds, without meaning to, “To you.”

“I made a choice,” Minghao says, slow on the final word the way anyone else might have said _commitment,_ instead. The emphasis feels almost deliberate. _No such thing as coincidences._ “But that’s not what you want to hear.”

“Hah! What I want? What I _want_ is–”

A phone rings. The light percussive melody is one Zhengting hasn’t heard in years. Minghao’s hand is already pulling his phone from his pocket as if on reflex.

_How did you know to choose._

“Never mind,” Zhengting says, already turning away. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

 

A video montage, posted to Zhu Zhengting’s Weibo supertopic at half past two in the morning, is titled as follows: _Most Essential Memories To An Illustriously Well Lived Career_. 

Approximately two minutes into the six minute long compilation is footage of Zhengting, age twenty one, spinning in place from the mirrors of a practice room, surrounded by trainees. Faint audio about chasing one’s dreams is audible below the edited string section instrumental. The class ranking from a survival competition is emblazoned on his sweatshirt. Zhengting says, _I’d be happy if it could be like this forever._

 

 

From the floor of a karaoke booth, Zhu Zhengting is out of breath, arms crossed. Still seated, Junhui is belting a ballad, purposely awful. The song changes over. Peering down at Zhengting, Junhui offers a hand. Zhengting takes it. Junhui resumes his singing, a crooning nasal warble this time, without missing a beat. He doesn’t take his eyes off Zhengting.

Zhengting drops the hand, clutching at his stomach. 

He can’t remember laughing like this at any other point in his life. 

Zhengting watches Junhui’s silhouette blur between each blink. Junhui, choking back his own laugh, jabbing a thumb at his chest as if to say, _The show must go on!._ Junhui, dropping to one knee and finally following the melody properly as he professes willingness to exchange all of his happiness for Zhengting’s rainy days.The mic stuttering out in protest immediately afterwards, in vehement protest. The weight and entirety of Zhengting’s joy contained within a single moment, all-encompassing and perfect.

“You didn’t even check your score,” Zhengting wheezes. _“Again.”_

“Because I always win,” Junhui says. No hesitation.

A second passes, and Zhengting takes great amusement watching Junhui’s face scrunch together at his own declaration. Zhengting bites his lip.

Carefully, he says, “…Yes.”

Only for Junhui to barrel into him, smacking his arm. “You’re supposed to laugh with me!”

“… _Yes.”_

Junhui glares. And then Zhengting laughs with him, and tips forward, and–

 

 

When Junhui first started picking up mainland schedules in earnest, he used to travel back in tandem with Minghao. He said this at one of their interviews – Zhengting thinks it might’ve been QQ Music –  


“We didn’t click at all. We still don’t, I don’t think?” Junhui laughs and Minghao doesn’t. But their interviewer does, which means the line served its purpose.

“Oh my! A conflict of interests? You seem to get along just fine now, though.”   
“Neither of us was willing to change for the other,” Minghao says. Quietly, the way he often is on camera but most people aren’t. “And at some point I stopped wanting him to…” Minghao laughs now. 

Zhengting doesn’t remember how the sentence finished. He had already disconnected the broadcast. 

 

 

“–I like this,” Junhui says instead, turning to tuck his face into the junction between Zhengting’s shoulder and throat. The carpet is worn to a thread where they’re laying on it. Music drifts overhead through the aged soundproofing of the karaoke booth. Junhui’s hair brushes against Zhengting’s Adam’s apple when Zhengting swallows.

“This?”

“I’m glad I got to know you,” Junhui explains. “I’m happy it can be like this.”

Everyone is destined for something. This is something Zhengting learned. Something Zhengting knows. 

Junhui has always known what he wanted.

Zhengting redirects. Says, sharper than intended, “Even when I win at karaoke?” 

Zhengting doesn’t know what he wants from Junhui. He can’t stand feeling like what he is means something less than what he feels. It shouldn’t make a difference. It does.

“Zhengting is very good at singing,” Junhui agrees.

Zhengting wants – what? Zhengting _wants_ …

Zhengting doesn’t try to kiss Junhui again.

 

 

_Neither of us was willing to change for the other, and at some point I stopped wanting him to try changing himself for – anyone else, really._

These are the words Zhengting didn’t let himself hear: _It’s not anything that deep, though. It’s just easier to change yourself than it is to change someone else. That’s all._

 

 

Something simple.

Something simple, agreed upon between two people instead of just decreed upon them. Yes. That’s what Zhengting wants. It clicked later than it should have. Zhengting no longer asks if anything clicked for Junhui. Junhui knows what he wants. Zhengting knows when not to ask for more. He’s always been good at that.

But he still _wants_ it. Wants what? To be the one chosen instead of the one who has to choose. Wants – the world, framed in a single moment, eager to be swallowed whole; his life, ready to be lived in, everything Zhengting could bring himself to chase after and more; Love, to know what you want and with who…

So Zhengting still wants many things in life. That’s fine. He’s chosen what he’s prepared to live with, and that’s enough. Zhengting will make it be enough. He’s always been good at that, too.

 

 

At three in the morning, Zhu Zhengting checks into his own supertopic on Weibo. There’s a video there, recently uploaded, more or less six minutes long. Zhengting lets it play in the background as he gets ready to sleep. Forgoes the effort required to floss for the patience to sit through a face mask before bed. Decisions weighed against each other like a settlement between contentment and compromise.

Surprising Zhengting, the video ends not with Zhengting, standing proud with an award at his chest during the Huabiao Awards, but with Zhengting, young enough that he can’t immediately place himself, beaming for a camera moments before dipping into a front split. Six minutes, twenty four seconds. Ends.

If Zhengting could tell the story himself, he thinks he would need much less than six minutes. Maybe not even twenty four seconds. Certainly no more than a single moment, hazy but unrepentant. 

 

Zhu Zhengting thinks he would frame that story like this:

 

He sees a boy. 

He sees a stage. 

He dances. He dreams. 

He has this moment.

He lives forever.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> – the song junhui is referenced singing during karaoke is [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2UmLHmeyV8).


End file.
